Once we had Dimbleby and Day: now it’s Nigel Farage and Piers Morgan. The two TV pundits have been trading insults this month ahead of last night’s launch of TalkTV, with both now seen as the figureheads of their two respective network channels. There’s Farage, the self-styled saviour of GB News, which launched in June, and Morgan, the well-remunerated controversialist with an eye for the main chance and a love of a good scrap.
The former Daily Mirror editor accused the Brexiteer of trying ‘to sabotage my interview with President Trump in a despicable act of two-faced weasel treachery’ after the two clashed about whether Trump stormed out of his TalkTV interview. Morgan meanwhile proudly trumpeted his ratings this morning, declaring that his broadcast debut got ‘five times the ratings’ of Farage’s show and boasting that he got more than BBC, Sky and GB News combined.
Figures from BARB show Morgan got an average of 317,000 viewers between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. or 2 per cent of overall audience share – ironically roughly the same figure which GB News got when it launched. Colleagues of Farage like Dan Wootton and Tom Harwood however were quick to point out online that ratings for TalkTV collapsed after Piers Morgan’s show ended, with the subsequent programme concluding with less than 30,000 viewers. Farage’s show meanwhile had 32 per cent more viewers in the 7 p.m to 8 p.m slot than Morgan’s colleague Tom Newton Dunn managed in the same hour.
Such numbers haven’t stopped Morgan from declaring ‘Karma’s a bitch Nige’ and that ‘the whole world’s talking about’ his interview with Trump. But this afternoon Steerpike ran into Farage at the Institute of Economic Affairs to get his response to Morgan’s bombast. Asked whether himself, Donald Trump or Piers Morgan was the most loveable character, the former Brexit party leader said:
I know who the most dishonest of the three is, because I couldn’t tell you what Piers Morgan stands for other than lockdown, lockdown, lockdown, wear masks, support Black Lives Matter and support the tearing down of historic statues in Bristol. There we are, good luck with all of that.
It looks like this rivalry is only going to run and run…
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